WordPress.com Usability Issues

Every few month I need to use WordPress.com to create or update a site for a friend. And every time I get frustrated with how confusing and convoluted the user interface is.

“Reader” is the default homepage

WordPress.com is about publishing so why do I get to see the empty “Reader” as my homepage? Getting to the actual site dashboard requires an additional click or even more if the site is not your default site.

Adding a new site is impossible

For logged-in users the only link to adding a new site is grayed out and hidden in the bottom left corner of the “Switch Site” section. I tried everything from visiting the homepage, my profile page to manually entering random URLs such as wordpress.com/new before I found that link.

Custom domain email settings don’t include MX records

The “Email” tab of the domain settings includes only an upsell for the Google Apps. Adding the MX records for an existing account is only possible under the individual domain “DNS Records” which is another three clicks away. Why not link to that section from the “Email” tab, too?

Overwhelming upsells

I already pay for a custom domain and I don’t need the banners reminding me of features I don’t need.

Invited users are invisible

There is no way to see users that have been invited to the site.

What about you?

These are just the highlights of what I could remember this morning. Do you also have things you find confusing on WordPress.com? What about the WP-Admin section 😊

You’ve raised some good points. However, still the most confusing issue is that many people don’t understand the difference between .com and .org. You can’t blame them if they’re looking at something that is branded as “WordPress.com” – who wouldn’t think that it’s WordPress.

If you then look at how different the user experience is on WordPress.com in comparison to a regular self-hosted WordPress site, it’s understandable that people are confused. On WordPress.com the regular WordPress dashboard is even completely hidden. It seems to be the first step to replace it entirely, probably with Gutenberg.